"The sovereignty and sultanate have never been transferred to anyone by any scientific method, by any rule or by any written constitutional provision. Sovereignty and sultanate are taken by strength, by power and by force. It was by force that the sons of Osman seized the sovereignty and sultanate of the Turkish nation; they have maintained this usurpation for six centuries. Now the Turkish nation has rebelled and has put a stop to these usurpers, and has effectively taken sovereignty and sultanate into its own hands. This is now an accomplished fact. The question is merely one of how to give it expression in constitutional form."

Mustafa Kemal (Ataturk), speech to the Grand National Assembly, Ankara, 1 November 1922, on the abolition of the Sultanate. The Turkish Republic was formally proclaimed on 29 October 1923.